Out Every Night: The Best Concerts in St. Louis From May 5 to 11

Start the week by partaking in Cinco de Mayo. Vintage Vinyl and Atomic Cowboy host free live Cuban music concerts to celebrate, and the rest of the week feels festive considering the bounty of shows up ahead. Perfect Pussy and Yamantaka//Sonic Titan stop into town along with metal legends Anvil, Flamin' Groovies, Amy Lavere and much more. Read on for this week's show recommendations.

Los Perros Cubanos
Monday, May 5, 6:30 p.m.
@ Atomic Cowboy - freeBy Mabel Suen
If you missed out on all the wild Cinco De Mayo on Cherokee Street action over the weekend, find another excuse to imbibe over live music at Atomic Cowboy on the actual fifth of May. Chicago's Los Perros Cubanos plays the '40s era music of Cuba all night long while Atomic Cowboy serves up happy hour specials including cervezas, margaritas and tacos. Early birds can also catch the group at Vintage Vinyl, where it will perform a free in-store set at 2 p.m., with free Schlafly Beer on hand for some primo day drinking.

Perfect Pussy
Tuesday, May 6, 9 p.m.
w/ Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, Green Dreams, Ghost Ice
@ Melt - $9By Mike Appelstein
On its debut album, Say Yes to Love, Syracuse's Perfect Pussy makes lots of noise, yet revels in contradictions. The songs sound clattering and chaotic until you notice just how skillfully the musicians switch tempos, change moods and stop on a dime. Lead vocalist Meredith Graves sounds like she's projecting her lyrics through a megaphone or broken walkie-talkie, switching from ominous mumbling to agitated yelling within a couple of syllables. Much of the album is frantic and breathless, yet "Advance Upon The Real" and "VII" are all ominous empty spaces and formless guitar buzz. Older listeners will be reminded of turn-of-the-1990s Huggy Bear. It all adds up to what will surely be an incendiary performance. Don't miss openers Yamantaka // Sonic Titan, a "psychedelic noh-wave opera group" from Montreal.

Peter Case
Wednesday, May 7, 7:30 p.m.
@ Off Broadway - $15-$18By Roy Kasten
Hip-hop and rockabilly, EDM and black metal, power-pop and the blues: Some genres don't gel. But for Peter Case, the latter two have underwritten one of the great careers in American music. As the force behind the Nerves and the Plimsouls, Case all but invented power-pop. And as a weathered songwriter, he's plugged into the elemental spirit of the blues -- the way it cuts to the quick of truth -- even when unplugging his stories. On the classic song "I Ain't Gonna Worry No More" he sings, "I may be cracked but it's just as well/My ears are ringing like the liberty bell." When Case powers up his blues on stage, so too will yours.

Anvil
Thursday, May 8, 7 p.m.
w/ Terra Caput Mundi, Voyage Of Slaves, Hung Like A Martyr
@ Fubar - $15-$17By Daniel Hill
Imagine you are a musician, a guitarist, and you have just released your band's first album, when Lemmy -- yes, the Lemmy, the one with the moles and the "rock legend" status -- suddenly approaches you and asked you to join his band, Motörhead. What do you say? If you are Steve "Lips" Kudlow, singer and guitarist of Toronto's Anvil, you politely decline, and go on to release fifteen studio albums, helping to shape the future of heavy metal by influencing countless bands including Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica. Don't miss this opportunity to see metal legends in the flesh, and marvel at the guitar wizardry of the man who told Lemmy "no." Opening the show is St. Louis' Terra Caput Mundi, whose latest LP, 2013's Lost in the Warp, shows tremendous growth from an already accomplished band.

Flamin' Groovies
Thursday, May 8, 7 p.m.
w/ Bad Dates
@ Plush - $20/$23By Roy Kasten
Begrudge not the Flamin' Groovies return to the stage in their presenescence years. If any rock band deserves a victory lap or dozen, it's Cyril Jordan, Chris Wilson and company, even if the Groovies' victory is Pyrrhic as punk and as modest as the band has never been. Few merit mention in the same breath as Big Star, MC5 and the Rolling Fucking Stones, but the Groovies do. "Shake Some Action" is as good as power-pop gets and "Teenage Head" is fuzzier and more menacing than any rock & roll that ever slouched its way out of the West coast psychedelic scene. Can the Groovies still live up to such notices? Could you forgive yourself if you didn't go and find out for yourself?